The Great Cuthbert Rookery 
others of intermediate shades. I sat in 
the stern with the Reflex camera in my 
lap, the slide withdrawn from a five by 
seven, and the focal-plane shutter set for 
one five-hundredth of a second. The sky 
was well filled with broken clouds, through 
which the sun shone at intervals. When 
the boat was within a few rods of the isl- 
and, the guide thumped an oar upon the 
thwart, whereupon quite a cloud of white 
ibises rose from the nearest mangroves, 
giving me the desired opportunity for my 
first picture. This was upon the west 
585 
a great fan. One of them, surprised by 
the boat near its nest, appeared completely 
terrified, and fell to the water, along the 
surface of which it went beating and 
fluttering past us. This was on the east 
side of the island; on the north a great 
blue heron started out, and the ibises be- 
gan to fly again; thus we completed the 
circuit. Once more around, and I had a 
goodly number of hopeful snapshots to my 
credit. 
Then we landed on the northern side, 
running the boat up into a sort of little 
Little Blue Herons in Flight. 
side of the island, where most of the ibises 
and also egrets, seemed to be located. 
We now rowed around the island south 
and east, keeping close to its densely over- 
grown shore. <A few rods further, and a 
lot of great black Florida cormorants be- 
gan springing and fluttering from the low 
mangroves, to fly out in bands over the 
lake and alight out in the water. A little 
further along numbers of little blue and 
Louisiana herons began to start up, and 
then, with tremendous flapping, past us 
would come an anhinga—the curious 
“snake-bird”’ or “water turkey” of the 
South—its slender, snake-like neck out- 
stretched, and the long tail spread out like 
bayou. Over us arched the tangled 
branches of the mangroves, which grew 
out into the water from the low muddy 
shore. Every step was attended with 
alarms and confusion. The trees, not 
over about thirty feet high anywhere, were 
filled with nests in almost every possible 
crotch. The owners scrambled away, 
squawking—Louisiana herons, white ibises 
and anhingas—at this point. Young 
herons seemed to be everywhere, pretty 
well grown, climbing and fluttering from 
branch to branch. 
The first nest that I especially noted, 
close to the boat and about ten feet above 
the water, held four young anhingas, per- 
